First Ever: Zionist Wikipedia Editing Course

New Zionist Wikipedia Editing course opened this week to help fight Israel's PR battles online.

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Hezki Baruch and Yoni Kempinski, 18/08/10 13:48 | updated: 14:19

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A first-of-its-kind course opened this week in Jerusalem: "Zionist Editing for Wikipedia." The patriotic "Yisrael Sheli" (My Israel) organization, which recently organized the demonstrations outside the Turkish Embassy after the flotilla incident, was motivated to open the course in order to address Israel's public relations problems.

The course, which was organized with the help of the Yesha Council, conducted a one-day seminar, and will continue online.

The strategy and goal of the course is to educate and enable an 'army' of editors of Wikipedia, giving them the professional skills to write and edit the online encyclopedia's content in a manner which defends and promotes Israel's image.The participants of the course were chosen from a long list of candidates, with 80 students in total slated to participate.

Seminar workshops were led by professionals and senior Wikipedia editors, and included an overview of the Wikipedia project and practical training on web editing, writing, and values.

Organizers said the initial seminar was a success, and there is a great demand for more meetings in the future.